‘My Children!’ Has Everything but Box Office

The producers of “My Children! My Africa!” are observing Thanksgiving with mixed feelings. They have a gripping play by one of the world’s most important playwrights, but they don’t have much of an audience.

In the first full week of its run at the 863-seat Henry Fonda Theatre, Athol Fugard’s drama grossed a mere $31,465 out of a potential $220,000. The break-even point for the first week had been budgeted low (at $51,900) but not that low. Assuming the run was launched successfully, a normal week’s break-even point would have been $93,000.

“I don’t know what buttons we have not pushed,” said the show’s general manager, Ken Meyers. “My Children!” got generally glowing reviews, not only here but also in its Aug. 26-Sept. 30 run at La Jolla Playhouse, where it sold “better than 90%” of the 492-seat house, according to a spokeswoman.

Meyers acknowledged that the period of advance publicity and promotion was much shorter than usual. The move to Hollywood was announced Oct. 23 and the first ads ran Oct. 28, two weeks before the Nov. 11 opening. At the time, said Meyers, it seemed that the best way to keep the La Jolla production intact was to open quickly.

In La Jolla, the production was heavily pre-sold to a subscription audience, and Meyers said mailings may yet be sent to Mark Taper Forum subscribers here if the show survives its initial run through Dec. 2.

“There really isn’t a substitute for a subscription audience.” said Los Angeles Theatre Center artistic director Bill Bushnell.

Bushnell saw and liked “My Children!” in New York and at La Jolla,, but LATC couldn’t have added the play to its season until later in the winter, he said. “I hope they make it; they’re in very deep water.”

LATC WATCH: Culture Clash, the Latino comedy trio, will return to Los Angeles Theatre Center in June for “Bowl of Beings,” a comedy seen earlier this year at San Francisco’s Asian American Theatre Center. It replaces David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow” on the theater’s spring-summer season.

“Speed-the-Plow,” a Hollywood-themed play already seen at South Coast Repertory and San Diego’s Bowery Theatre, is off at the nonprofit LATC because of possible plans to stage it commercially in Los Angeles, said Mamet’s agent, Howard Rosenstone.

But LATC’s Bill Bushnell said he still hopes to present the play at a later date. “If we can come up with the right people (in the cast), I think we can get the rights back.” Mamet wants a “high visibility” cast, said Bushnell--in other words, stars.

Actually, Culture Clash may be stars by the time they return to LATC. They’ve snagged a development deal for a Fox TV series to be produced and directed by Richard (Cheech) Marin. . . . And the Latino comedy troupe Latins Anonymous, who preceded Culture Clash at LATC, have a script deal with ABC.

In another LATC schedule change, Birgir Sigurdsson’s “Day of Hope” has been moved from the season’s third slot, in March-April, to the sixth, in May-July. The playwright and director’s schedules were cited as the reason. The sixth slot had been occupied only by “to be announced”; now the third slot has that honor.

SCR WATCH: South Coast Repertory has instituted a pay-what-you-will policy at selected performances, beginning with this Saturday’s matinees of “The Secret Rapture” and “Alekhine’s Defense.”

All purchases under the policy must be made on the day of the performance--and depend on availability. In other words, if those performances sell out before Saturday, forget it. But a spokesman said that the chosen performances were selected because they were not expected to sell out.

There is a limit of four tickets per purchase. If you pay at least $10, you may use a credit card. Information: (714) 957-4033.

South Coast has slated Manuel Puig’s “Kiss of the Spider Woman” for a Second Stage production to run Jan. 25-Feb. 24. The slot had been assigned to “a new play.”

“Kiss” was produced in Spain and Britain before being made into a Hollywood film starring William Hurt and Raul Julia in 1985. The play also has been staged at Hollywood’s Cast Theatre and at Yale Repertory in New Haven, Conn. A musical version was presented in Purchase, N.Y., earlier this year.

SCR associate artist David Chambers, who staged the Yale Rep production of “Kiss,” will direct it again at SCR. “This is the play that he is really hot on, and that’s why it’s being done,” said theater spokesman Cristofer Gross, who added that “no other plays were really in the running.”

PIPPI IN HOLLYWOOD: Mikel Pippi is the new producing director of the Comedy Store Playhouse, the long-moribund 232-seat theater formerly known as the Hollywood Playhouse.

When the Comedy Store’s Mitzi Shore bought the theater two years ago, it was heralded as a future home for comedies and stand-up comics who wanted to do extended theater pieces. But the only shows to be seen there since then have been the AIDS drama “As Is” and the one-man “Freud” starring Harold Gould, neither produced by Shore.

And the next show to rent the space--a one-woman Harriet Tubman drama, “Hats,” opening Jan. 11 for four weeks--doesn’t sound like a laugh riot, either.

“We hope to have the theater live up to its name within a year,” said Pippi. Besides comedies and stand-up comics’ longer productions, Pippi is also talking to comedy troupes who might come in for one night a week. He’s also in negotiations to present the Los Angeles premiere of “Groucho: A Life in Revue,” seen recently in La Mirada and earlier in Pasadena.

Pippi said a mid-sized theater such as this one “is not a place where you make money.” It’s “a generating station.” The goal is “to create projects with an afterlife and then participate in that afterlife.”

Still, he noted that Actors’ Equity’s new Hollywood Area Contract for mid-sized theaters “makes things a lot more affordable.”

Pippi has retained a part-time position as public relations director at California Music Theatre in Pasadena, where he was a full-time staffer until two weeks ago, and he said that it’s possible CMT will be able to use the Hollywood facility for workshops.

ADIEU RAOUL AND MIGUEL: Reece Holland, who has played the romantic rival of “The Phantom of the Opera” since the show opened at the Ahmanson last year, left the cast Sunday. Understudy Joseph Dellger is filling in until mid-December, when permanent replacement Michael Piontek, currently on Broadway in “Grand Hotel,” is slated to take over.

And the latest word from Sheri Glaser’s “Family Secrets,” re-opening at the Heliotrope Saturday, is that her new character of Miguel is still in development and will be presented only if an encore is requested.

Times staff writer Jan Herman contributed to this article.